Radio link with Mir lost for 24 hours

THE troubled Mir space station's last few weeks in orbit promised to be packed with surprises yesterday when mission control lost contact with the ageing vessel for almost 24 hours.

Mir: radio communications are back online

The breakdown in communications was later repaired, but provoked new concern that Mir's planned splashdown in the Pacific at the end of February could spin out of control and threaten lives. Contact with the 130-ton unmanned craft was lost on Monday afternoon, but its controllers at Korolyov, outside Moscow, disclosed the problem only yesterday.

Plans to send up an emergency crew to come to the rescue or accelerate Mir's return to earth were under consideration until the radio link was restored during a routine session. "The station is completely sealed and it has power," Yuri Semyonov, head of the Energiya corporation, told NTV. "If there is some unpleasantness and it can be repaired only by cosmonauts, then cosmonauts will be sent up there."

The problem appeared to have been caused by a malfunction in the solar panels which provide power for the orbiting station, he said.